


Desert Sands and a Seafoam Soul

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Amnesia fic, Carlos does not have a double, Carlos doesn't remember Night Vale, Cecil is Human, Cecil is not a happy lab specimen, Desert Bluffs, M/M, Muted Cecil, Re-Education, Strexcorp, Sub Cecil, he can't talk and it is StrexCorp's fault, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:46:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1394989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos doesn't remember the accident that his bosses at StrexCorp assure him he was in, but they tell him that's normal too. He's lost a couple years of memory, and they're sure he'll get right back into the swing of things now that he's out of the hospital.</p><p>They also tell him that the man in the cage is dangerous. Some kind of monster. It's a bit harder to believe that part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue- The Nightingale

**Author's Note:**

> (this shares a lot of things with the sub Cecil series, but isn't really a part of that continuity-- call it a very dark AU)
> 
> 'The Visitor' is alluded to very briefly, but it's not very spoilery for that particular episode. However, if you're a new listener and you haven't gotten to Yellow Helicopters yet, then hold off on reading this one because it's all about the story arc that begins there. And I guess also spoilers for the Sandstorm, kind of? But most of you will be familiar with all of this already.
> 
> This chapter is just a short prologue.

Cecil woke, groggy, and pushed himself up.

 

It didn't take long to realize something was wrong, even with the fuzziness he felt. The collar around his neck was heavy, and hard, and he felt something sharp all around, where it should have been soft, should have hardly felt like wearing anything at all. This one wasn't comforting, wasn't Carlos' gift to him.

 

Also, he and Carlos didn't own any leg irons, and there was definitely something heavy weighing his ankles down, keeping them bound tight together.

 

Furthermore, he was on a cold hard floor. It was solid and sleek and there was too much light. His bed wasn't anywhere, when he looked around. Wherever he was, it was blurry without his glasses, but he could tell it was nowhere he'd been before.

 

"Hello, friend."

  
Cecil jumped as someone loomed into his field of vision. The bright black eyes, he cringed away and couldn't hear his own surprised cry, they were too much like that awful mechanical 'pet'. He thought of that even before he thought of the man, the double, who'd attacked him during the sandstorm.

 

Of course, it was the man who'd attacked him during the sandstorm, but he couldn't hear himself shout for help either. Panicked, he tried again, clutching at the strange collar. The strange, heavy, metallic collar.

 

'Oh, masters of us all', he mouthed, but still there was no sound. It felt like a croak.

 

"Need a hand?" The man asked, and his smile was too wide and too filled with teeth to be real, to be called a 'smile'.

 

'No', Cecil mouthed, shaking his head, but the man pulled him up anyway.

 

"Kevin. Remember? From the radio station." He greeted, carrying Cecil to a narrow cot and depositing him there with a little grunt. "Oof, you're a heavy one! No offense-- no heavier than I am! Except for your new accessories there... Anyway! I'm covering your show, so don't worry about a thing! From now on, I'll be broadcasting to Desert Bluffs _and_ Night Vale! Isn't that _exciting_? A unified show, a unified station. A unified _community_."

 

This was not exciting. Cecil shook his head again. This was one of the most horrifying things he could imagine being confronted with, and only one thing made it bearable.

 

'Carlos is going to come for me', he said-- or couldn't say-- and Kevin stared at his mouth, brow furrowing briefly.

 

"Sorry, friend, couldn't catch that!" He replied cheerily.

 

Kevin left, with a little wave and a bounce in his step, and Cecil felt sick. He curled in on himself and waited for someone to do something, to explain why he was... wherever he was. He knew he'd provoked them, and maybe he had not been as careful as he'd thought, but this was so different from how Station Management used to handle things when he'd done something wrong. This was like the opposite of the Dark Box, with all the bright light, with what felt like a big expanse around him.

 

He didn't have too long on his own. A stranger came in and handed him his glasses after only a few minutes' miserable reflection. With them on, he could see that the room he was in was at once bigger and smaller than he'd first estimated.

 

Or rather, he was in a cage, inside a very big room. The cage might as well have been a very small room, with clear walls, but there was a tiny room of the same clear material, thick plastic or shatterproof glass, on the other side of the only door. Just big enough to act as an airlock-- not an airlock, a Cecil-lock. Like he was a zoo animal who had to be kept from escaping.

 

The stranger wore a business suit and a lab coat, and a gold sun-shaped pin winked from her tie. There was a pen tucked behind her ear, her blond hair was swept up into the most businesslike updo Cecil had ever seen, and despite the severity she projected, she smiled, too.

 

If you could call it a smile.

 

"Kevin told you about the show?" She greeted.

 

Cecil snarled soundlessly, and she laughed. The laugh stung, made all his rage feel impotent in a way that the security measures did not, and he shrank in on himself. He tapped the collar, with a questioning look, and she nodded.

 

"We didn't think it would take you very long to notice. It's to keep you from telling Carlos about what happened."

 

'Carlos!', he shouted-- mouthed, and wished he could shout. He pushed himself up from the bed and fell back when he found himself unable to swing his feet down, unbalanced.

 

She laughed. Again.

 

"You'll see him soon, Mr. Palmer. He works for us now."

 

'He can't! He doesn't!' Cecil shook his head and pushed himself up more carefully. 'You're wrong!'

 

"He doesn't remember you." Her smile curled wider, sharper, less smile-like, and Cecil shook his head again, but didn't bother trying to speak. "And we can't have you messing that up."He sagged back down onto the thin mattress, shaking his head still. Carlos had to remember him, had to know him. And even if he didn't, he couldn't work for Strex-- he couldn't! It was wrong, more wrong than losing the radio show was, and he'd long thought nothing could ever be so wrong as that. He'd thought his worst fears were confirmed when Kevin came in earlier."You should count yourself lucky." The woman said, and a part of him wanted to laugh. He merely stared up at her in disbelief-- she did the laughing for him. "Kevin wanted to kill you. He said you were redundant, now that he was handling the radio for both towns. Imperfect. Unnecessary. Harmful. But that's only true if you're free, and there are experiments we would like to run. Your being redundant just means you're available now to be experimented on. Kevin came around, of course-- he's a real team player."She left him with that, and Cecil curled up in a ball on his cot, with his heart even heavier than his feet. And silently, he cried.


	2. The Sunbeam and the Captive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which-- Strex assures him-- Carlos sees his new charge for the first time.

Carlos didn't really know what to think. He hadn't much known what to think since waking up in a private hospital, one owned by StrexCorp Synernists Inc., a company he apparently worked for.

 

He didn't remember going to work for this company, but then, he'd been in a fairly serious accident. His doctor told him all about it. His new supervisor-- his not-new supervisor?-- told him that his doctors told him all about it several times, because it had affected both long- and short-term memory. He was missing a chunk of his life, a chunk of his work... And he didn't know which was worse, when it came down to it. He didn't know what he was working on, and his supervisor-- Missy? Misty? She'd had one of those names. Blonde, he definitely remembered that about her-- she'd told him that Strex didn't want to burden him with it until he was back on his feet.

 

The company hospital was on one of the floors of a massive office building, he found that out pretty quickly. He also learned that the same building housed small employee apartments. The word 'apartment' was generous, but since there were common dining areas, the lack of a real kitchen wasn't a huge deal, and whatever he forgot, he could remember living with less. Compared to student living, his company-provided housing was the lap of luxury. Not much space, but the furnishings themselves were really nice.

 

He hadn't seen much of Desert Bluffs, but then, he hadn't ever needed to leave Strex headquarters, and he was excited to get back to work. Whatever that was.

 

On the elevator down to the labs, Missy-- it was Missy!-- introduced him to a man named Kevin. Apparently he was The Voice of Desert Bluffs, and also a few other small towns in the area, who all shared a broadcast. Apparently, Strex owned the radio station, but he wasn't sure why he had to meet their presenter. He wished he hadn't, there was something oily about the man, about his broad smile and soft voice and lingering handshake, and about the coppery smell in the air of the elevator. There was a wrongness he couldn't explain, when he looked at Kevin, that went beyond any of the little things that set off creep alarms.

 

Missy didn't seem to find Kevin remotely off-putting, but then, Missy had the air of some kind of religious zealot from one of those Hollywood cults, so Carlos wasn't sure she'd know 'creepy' if it bit her. It probably already had.

 

"This is technically a new project for you." She explained, in her even, chipper voice. "Upper management wasn't sure about graduating you to it, after your accident, but you've made so much improvement, and they really want to give you a chance."

 

"I appreciate it." He mumbled, still unsure. He wanted to know what his old project was. He remembered something, almost. It was gone in less than a second, just a fleeting blip of looking through the window of a house somewhere. It niggled at the back of his mind, but he shook it off. It couldn't have been work-related.

 

"I'm going to warn you, Carlos, the thing I'm about to show you... it's dangerous."

 

He knew she must have been serious, by the way her smile actually left, her expression serious.

 

"I'm sure I can handle it. I mean-- I wouldn't be put on the project if I couldn't... right?"

 

"Right." Her smile returned, but only briefly. "This is going to be disturbing to you, Carlos. And that's okay. Monsters should be disturbing."

 

Monsters? He had no idea what that meant. Monsters weren't real, 'monster' was an antiquated term for something science didn't understand-- unless she meant a human monster, but he couldn't fathom why she should be. He studied science, not serial killers. Or... or whatever she could have meant.

 

It looked like a human being, when they disembarked the elevator and approached the big glass cage. It was almost as big as the main room of his little apartment-- really more a luxury hotel suite than an apartment-- but there was no kitchenette, no expensive furnishings... just a cot and a small bathroom. He wondered why there were walls and a door built around the sink and toilet when those were glass as well. There was a drain in the center of the little cubicle's floor, and a showerhead over it, instead of any separate place for bathing.

 

And there on the cot, there was a figure, curled in on itself, wearing some kind of a collar and leg irons. The restraints looked barbaric, next to the brightness of the facility, the lab that surrounded the cell. The collar wasn't even attached to anything.

 

Carlos' head hurt, and he squinted, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead. The collar was... it wasn't right. It wasn't right that it wasn't attached to anything, he told himself, why did it need to exist if it wasn't attached to anything? But he couldn't help feeling that the wrongness went deeper than that.

 

"What the he--" He stopped himself, glancing at Missy, half-afraid of reproach. "What's going on? I-- I'm not a medical doctor, if this man is sick."

 

Even as he said it, he knew that wasn't the case. If the man in the cage was sick, he wouldn't be treated like a prisoner.

 

"Man." Missy scoffed, with a hollow little laugh. "No. That 'man' is an abomination."

 

The word felt hot and sharp, slicing into his gut and radiating sickness, and Carlos felt faint at it. "I'm afraid I don't understand. I-- I'm a scientist, this--"

 

"He's an exact double of Kevin, the man you met in the elevator. Almost exact. But he isn't... correct. They're not long-lost twins, before you ask. Those tests were run already, while you were still recovering. No, whatever that thing is, it was sent to kill our Kevin, maybe to replace him. It's terrible. Poor Kevin was attacked!"

 

Carlos couldn't really bring himself to feel sorry. He wanted to say that this was wrong-- that the man was probably a harmless doppelganger, something that just happened sometimes. A man with the same build and face just through an accident of genetics, of synchronicity. But there was something unimpeachable about Missy, about her stern expression and stern hairdo.

 

"I'll leave you to it." Missy smiled, when Carlos made no further protests to her. She swept out of the room, heading back up in the elevator and leaving Carlos to the bustling lab techs who were able to so perfectly ignore the human being inside the big glass cell in their midst. And, of course, leaving him to the man himself.

 

Curiosity won out, and he had the feeling it couldn't be sated by talking to any of the lab techs, who all wore that peculiar brand of what Carlos had come to think of as Strex-ness. He let himself into the cage, through the little double-doored chamber.

 

As soon as the inner door was closed behind him, the man on the cot jerked up, as if out of a sleep, red-rimmed eyes widening behind the smeared, dotted lenses of his glasses. Had he been crying? Monsters, if they were real, did not cry... this was so, so terribly wrong.

 

Carlos could have sworn the man mouthed his name. He found himself moving closer.

 

"H-hi. I'm Carlos. I-- I'm here to get to the bottom of what's... of what's happening here. With you." He greeted, uncomfortable under the weight of the man's gaze. It was as if he was the last ray of light in a terrible nightmare, and maybe after whoever had been in charge of the project before him, he was. No one else seemed very sympathetic to the strange man's plight.

 

The man nodded, with a watery smile, holding out a hand. Carlos took it, only for the man to turn it over, palm up, resting on his own palm. He proceeded to trace letters across Carlos' palm. A C, an E, C again...

 

"Cee... Cecil? Cecil?"

 

The man nodded, his smile brightening. He still looked on the verge of tears, but Carlos couldn't really blame him for that. How long had he lived this way? Missy hadn't given any indication.

 

"Well, hello, Cecil. I... I'm sorry, about all this. It has to be some misunderstanding."

 

Cecil did look like Kevin, on the surface at least. But he didn't seem much like him. He didn't have that oiliness, and while he also held Carlos' hand a little too long, it didn't feel predatory. It felt like a man who could have been starved of human contact. And he had to believe Cecil was a man, and not...

 

Not some kind of robot or homunculus, or whatever Strex seemed to think had come to attack Kevin. Well, they couldn't think Cecil was a robot, at least, if they'd done genetic testing on him. Why hadn't they let him go? Or turned him over to the authorities, if he really had attacked someone?

 

He reached out to touch the heavy metal collar, pulling his hand back in surprise when Cecil nearly swooned.

 

"Sorry! Sorry-- Did that hurt you?" He leaned in, tilting his head and trying to get a look. There seemed to be spikes on the inside, and his stomach turned again at the thought of what he was mixed up in now, and what was being done to this poor, probably innocent stranger. If he was honest, Carlos thought Kevin was more capable of being dangerous than Cecil was, even if he had only met them that day, even if one of them had been a professional working for the same big company and the other was being held in irons in a cell, and leg irons, really? How was that anything but barbaric?

 

Cecil shook his head, blushing, his hands balling up into fists on his knees.

 

"Okay, well... Well, good. I'm not here to hurt you, Cecil."

 

Cecil nodded, and looked up at him again with that same trust, and even though Carlos only wanted to do what was right, that trust felt so misplaced.

 

'I know', he mouthed, and Carlos looked at the collar again, and understood.

 

One of the lab techs looked over, when he retched into the toilet-- the toilet whose walls were still glass, still clear, and could Cecil have not even that much privacy?-- but no one looked at him for long.

 

No one except for Cecil, whose eyes stayed on him, sad and weary and so sympathetic that Carlos couldn't stand it. What had he done to deserve sympathy in this man's eyes when he was one of the people poking and prodding at him and holding him captive, and for what reason?

 

Carlos rinsed his mouth out and wiped his face on his sleeve, instead of on Cecil's clean hand towel-- he could leave the man that, at least. After a moment's thought, he got the towel damp and brought it back to the cot, taking Cecil's glasses and wiping the tear tracks from his cheeks. They were visible, the crust of salt where the wetness of the tears had evaporated, and Carlos thought they were probably uncomfortable, itching at the skin.

 

He patted Cecil's cheeks dry after, and went to hang the towel back up, but by the time he was back at Cecil's side, the tears had started again.

 

Even when sobs shook Cecil's shoulders, he was almost perfectly silent. Carlos could hear the air drawn into his lungs or expelled hard, but no voice. He didn't know what to do, about the man's distress or about his own complicity, and the urge to help could only take him so far. Faced with tears, he was at a loss. He didn't even know how he'd managed to do anything for Cecil before, when he'd never been any good at dealing with other people's emotions. He wasn't even good at dealing with his own, he usually preferred pushing them down and ignoring them as much as possible, focusing on work.

 

That wouldn't work, now. Now Cecil was his work. He didn't understand it, he didn't think he wanted to, and he just couldn't do more. He needed to get away, to get some clarity somehow.

 

He left the cell, barely giving himself the time he knew he was supposed to take before closing the inner door and opening the outer. Someone would be able to help him, someone would have to be able to. He just needed to find someone else who wasn't so completely... Strexed.


	3. A Story From the Sand-Hills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It would be easier for Cecil to know less. It would be easier for Carlos to know more.

No one had to tell Cecil how far from home he was. Once he got his bearings, once the sheer shock and pain of all he'd lost-- his freedom, his show, his voice, _Carlos_ \-- had subsided, he knew.

 

Desert Bluffs. They'd brought him to Desert Bluffs. And even if they had had a place like this in Night Vale, they couldn't afford him even that small comfort.

 

He was sure they did have places in Night Vale, now. Maybe there were strange cages and laboratories beneath the whole of his town, and maybe Strex personnel skittered in and out of them like poisonous spiders living in fear of honest starlight and the howling void overhead, seeking distance from it in the bowels of the earth. Emerging to bask beneath the hot, hot desert sun and to smile their poisonous smiles at good people on the street while lovers wept and children built their secret armies.

 

But they had brought Cecil to Desert Bluffs, and when he could feel past the immediate pain, he could feel that, too. It was an itch between skin and bone, where there was no room between skin and bone to house it. It was something hot and weighted that sat close to his brain and festered. He was out of reach of all the comforts of home. And they had Carlos, they had Carlos in this smiling and poisonous place, and who was going to take care of poor Khoshekh?

 

No. He couldn't think about that. Someone would, when he didn't show up. Maybe the Faceless Old Woman would even handle things, at least until a friend came by. And he trusted a friend would, if one had not already. There was no way his disappearance wouldn't go unremarked upon, he was the Voice of Night Vale, after all.

 

He _was_ the Voice of Night Vale, then. He didn't know what he was without the power of speech.

 

Kevin came by when Carlos was not there, to stare through the glass at him with cold, dead eyes. Kevin never mentioned that Cecil had been brought to Desert Bluffs, when he did. Nor did the woman with the winking gold sun tie tack and severe updo, who often came when Carlos was there, to talk to him about progress and to give him folders full of instructions.

 

Sometimes Cecil watched Carlos read the instructions and shudder. Once, he watched the woman whisper something in his ear, and for the first time in the three days since Carlos had first seen him and sat with him and failed to recognize him, Carlos entered the cell.

 

"Cecil... I'm so, so sorry about this." He sighed, sitting on the edge of Cecil's cot and taking Cecil's hand, and still, still failing to look at him the way he once had. "How could I have... How can I _work_ here?"

 

'You don't', Cecil wanted to say.

 

"This... these things shouldn't be legal. They certainly aren't ethical. Missy wants results, and... and my team is depending on me, and she... she says someone has-- She says someone has to... She says you're not real, and of course you are, you're sitting right here. She says wherever you come from, you're not... I don't understand how she can say you aren't a real person, it sounds _insane_. It all sounds insane. And if I can't run these tests then someone else will, and if it's not on you then it's on one of my lab techs, or it's on-- it's on-- Cecil, how did I get mixed up in this? Am-- am I a bad person? I'm missing more than three _years_ of my _life_. Did I change?"

 

Cecil shook his head, clutching at Carlos' hand.

 

"Of course I don't-- It's not like I expect you to have _answers_. I'm a stranger."

 

He shook his head again. He didn't think Carlos even noticed.

 

"I'm going to hold her off as long as I can. I'm going to do the easiest experiments I can-- easiest on you, I mean. Harmless ones, I promise. Just blood samples and urine samples and... well, mostly the techs will be handling that, I've never-- I'm a _scientist_."

 

Cecil almost laughed at that, though there was no sound.

 

'I know."

 

"Oh." Carlos looked down, with a weak smile, and plucked at his lab coat. "Right. Of course you know that. I'm not sure how any of these tests are scientifically helpful. Hopefully I'll be able to show her something to convince her you're just a harmless coincidence. I mean, you didn't _really_ attack Kevin, right?"

 

Cecil shrugged, unwilling to lie, his hand moving to his throat-- to the collar. It had been self-defense, mostly. He'd stopped himself! He didn't want Carlos to read his hesitation as guilt, when he'd only been defending himself, when he hadn't killed his double when all over town others were, when he'd wanted so badly not to have a conflict like that one at all.

 

"No, no, I know, you can't answer."

 

Cecil shook his head, and wrapped a hand around his throat, over the thick, heavy collar that stood in the way.

 

'He attacked me', he mouthed, and Carlos stared at his mouth-- not the way that he used to-- with his brow furrowed.

 

"Oh... _Cecil_." Carlos pulled his hand away from the collar with a heavy frown. "I-- I believe you. I'm going to have someone come in and take your blood, all right? I'm going to show Missy, I'm going to explain... I'm going to try. I-- Okay?"

 

Cecil clung to his hand again, and in the end, Carlos merely motioned one of the lab techs to come in.

 

"I need a blood draw, and for you to run the sample up to one of the upstairs labs-- they have a whole hospital in the building, someone has to... has to know what to do with that."

 

The lab tech nodded, scurrying back out, and Cecil crawled into Carlos' lap, lying half cradled there.

 

"Oh." Carlos blanched. "Uh. You're... friendly. Are you squeamish about giving blood?"

 

Cecil shook his head, and would have laughed again, except this was supposed to be his Carlos.

 

"Well... okay. That's good, then, I guess. Don't worry, everything will be... Um." He petted awkwardly at Cecil's hair. "Everything will continue to be, and to change, and... time will pass and the world will continue to rotate and to orbit the sun, so in that sense of the phrase, everything will be okay."

 

It was comforting, in its own way. It was Carlos. Cecil knew it wasn't exactly fair, throwing himself at a man who didn't remember loving him, but he couldn't stand denying himself the only comfort available to him, and Carlos didn't push him away, or admonish him. Maybe it was in vain, but Cecil could hope, did hope, that Carlos' body would remember what his brain did not, that his lap would remember Cecil's weight and that his hands would remember the shape of Cecil's head and the feel of his hair. So far, it hadn't worked, but Cecil hoped just the same.

 

Carlos held him until after the blood draw was done, and the lab tech gone to deliver the tube, and then he eased Cecil back out of his lap.

 

"I'll go get you a bandage, okay?"

 

Cecil nodded, and hunched in on himself miserably. He wasn't the Voice of Night Vale without his voice. He wasn't Carlos' sweet baby without Carlos. He wasn't anything without his town, without his community... with no friends and no family and no Faceless Old Woman or Sheriff's Secret Police officer to watch him. If Strex had kept him anywhere but under observation, when they took him, would he even continue to exist, with all his ties severed?

 

He didn't even perk up on Carlos' re-entry, merely allowed Carlos to lift his arm and fix the sterile cotton ball and the plasticky tape bandage in place.

 

"Sorry, this was what they had. I asked if there were other colors, I know it comes in-- Oh. Um. Sorry. I'm... not sure why I thought you wouldn't like this one, actually. For a minute I... it just seemed like I thought I knew you'd rather have something else."

 

Cecil looked down at his arm, where the tape bandage was bright yellow, with a repeating pattern of smiley faces that made him feel just a little sick to his stomach. One ordinary dimpled curve for a mouth, two eyes placed where eyes ought to be placed, for such a simple drawing... but he really didn't like looking at it. He looked up at Carlos instead, feeling a faint swell of hope.

 

"Purple." Carlos blurted. "I thought your favorite color was purple, for some reason."

 

Cecil smiled, nodding.

 

"Oh. Wow. Lucky guess. I guess. Um... sorry. I guess yellow is the opposite of purple." He laughed, nervous. "But at least it's smiling?"

 

Cecil decided he could forgive Carlos that, all things considered. He did not want his bleeding arm to smile at him, not when StrexCorp was behind any of it. He did not want Strex to have his blood. They may have convinced Carlos that it was the least harmful of their tests, but Cecil wasn't convinced. Just because they didn't want anyone else to practice blood magic didn't necessarily mean they would dismiss it as a tool from their arsenal, if they really wanted to hurt him. But Carlos couldn't be blamed for that, either.

 

"Oh-- Dammit-- Sorry. I'll be back, all right?" Carlos made for the doors again, and Cecil could really only let him go, and wonder when he meant he would be back.

 

It turned out not to be long. Carlos returned with a single-serving bottle of apple juice, grumbling under his breath about why he couldn't find orange, and a candy bar.

 

"It'd make me feel better if someone poked me." He offered, handing both over to Cecil. After three days of an unappetizingly tasteless and protein-deficient gruel, Cecil found he cared a lot less about who had his blood and why once he was presented with some sugar. He would quit eating the gruel, except he didn't think it would make him feel any less lightheaded and disoriented to give up on food altogether.

 

Carlos sat with him while he ate and drank, and smiled when Cecil touched his hand, and at the mouthed 'thank you'.

 

"Any time." He shrugged. "Next time I'll try to remember to bring something down with me beforehand. It's just stuff from the employee vending machines..."

 

Cecil just shrugged in return.

 

"I'm sorry, that I'm involved in all of this. I'm sorry that _you're_ involved in all of this. I... I don't know _how_ I'm involved in all of this." He shook his head. "How do you _not_ think I'm a bad person?"

 

Cecil wished he could touch Carlos' face, touch his hair... wished he could communicate longer thoughts without too much being lost in translation. With the clear walls and the eyes of the lab techs, he could do none of that, not without risking Carlos' safety. He squeezed his hand instead and said nothing. As long as he didn't try to tell Carlos more, Strex would allow him that much, wouldn't they? They couldn't expect him to be stone.

 

"Well... Thanks, for having faith in me. It's a little more than I have in myself." Carlos sighed.

 

Despite that closeness, when Carlos left, Cecil was prepared not to have a chance to be near him like it for several days more. That had been what it was like the first time, after all, and he knew it wasn't professional, getting close to him. Wasn't something Strex would like, and he would rather undergo vivisection than be the reason for Carlos getting into real trouble with Strex.

 

Instead, Carlos strode into the lab in a fury first thing in the morning, the commotion he caused amongst the lab techs pulling Cecil out of his light sleep. The outer door was barely closed behind him when he walked into Cecil's cell.

 

"I don't study blood." He said, very carefully, though Cecil could tell there was anger still boiling beneath the surface. "Or the human body. I'm a scientist. I study science."

 

Cecil nodded.

 

"But I'm not stupid!" Carlos continued, and outside the cell, the lab techs watched with wide eyes.

 

One of them whispered into a cell phone, and Cecil felt his guts twist.

 

"I know what numbers mean!" Carlos shouted, and he looked immediately repentant when he saw Cecil cringe. "I-- I mean-- Cecil, I'm not mad at you. I-- Here."

 

He pulled another vending machine packet out of his lab coat pocket and tossed it down onto the cot.

 

Beef jerky.

 

"You'd better eat it before they take it." He mumbled, as behind him the lab doors opened and Missy marched in, sensible heels clacking angrily on the tile, her smile sharp and artificial.

 

Cecil wanted to refuse, but the part of his brain not worn down by his meager diet knew that his refusal to eat wasn't going to absolve Carlos of the bringing of the thing. He tore into the jerky and stuffed his cheeks with it, held the rest in a fist he kept himself curled around as he chewed. 

 

"Carlos, can I speak to you, in my office?" Missy asked, and the strained sweetness in her tone was venom.

 

"I think so, yes." Carlos nodded, squaring his shoulders, and turning to her, he couldn't see Cecil.

 

He couldn't see Cecil reach for him, with his free hand, couldn't see Cecil mouth the word 'wait' in desperation, not forgetting that he couldn't speak but ignoring it in the hopes that sheer will could force some sound from him. He couldn't see Cecil beg for the chance at the goodbye he'd been denied before.

 

He just left with Missy, and her sun tie pin, her sharp suit and her sharp smile and her sleek hairdo and the scent of murder under her blood red nails.


	4. The Thorny Road of Honor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos has to learn on his feet how to handle his StrexCorp masters... and how to grapple with questions of what kind of man he is. Most importantly, how to best protect the strange, silent man in his care.

There was a bloody handprint on the door of the office next to Missy's, one which bore no gold-lettered name. It was sticky, well on its way to dry, and despite the fastidious cleanness of every other part of the building that Carlos had seen, no janitor had popped up to scrub it away.

 

He'd seen the janitors at work before, removing scuff marks from the floor almost as soon as a passing shoe could leave them. He'd seen them rush to leave nothing out of place. Which begged the question, did that mean the handprint was considered... not out of place, somehow?

 

He shook the thought from his mind and followed her in, and when she motioned him to sit in one of the low leather chairs before her desk, he opted to stand. He'd dealt with negotiations before. Usually to seek funding, and not to protect a human life, and these stakes were inarguably much higher, but still. He'd learned some things, and one of them was to not take a chair that was going to make him look ten years old in front of the 'grown up' at the desk.

 

"Carlos, have you made a habit of slipping unauthorized foodstuffs to the monster who attacked our Kevin? You must have known that this would upset us, or you would not have been so... sneaky." Missy glared at him.

 

Carlos squared his shoulders. This wasn't the time for a call to mercy, he could see that now. Maybe there would never be a time. The bloody handprint outside and the way Missy hadn't broken her stride, and the way it had smelled so strongly, more than a handprint should have... the way so much of the building seemed to smell of blood even when he could see none... it painted a clear picture.

 

His only option for now was to be the man Strex had hired, then, at least to their faces.

 

"Missy, you're a businesswoman." He spread his hands. "And I'm sure that you understand a good deal about science, or you wouldn't be running this division. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not a medical doctor. Neither are you. But, I do know that you gave me a long list of tests you wanted run, and you've been on me to get them done, and the thing is... the thing is... Well, they won't work. They won't work, unless the subject has a baseline health, uh, standard. Baseline standard of good health. I couldn't get through half of them. So if you want to see results, then Ce--subject, um... Subject Seventeen dash N V forty-two thirteen needs to... you know, blah blah nutrition, science."

 

He waved a hand dismissively towards the end, and called upon all his years in academia to hide just how badly he was sweating. If he could survive peer review, then he could survive this.

 

Granted, nobody from that particular chapter in his life had had a beautiful man chained up in their basement, but still, it had been pretty stressful.

 

A man. A man chained up in their basement, and how cute he was while being chained up was not of any importance, the important thing was that it was wrong to keep him prisoner.

 

"Oh." Missy smiled broadly at him, nodding. "Oh, of course. Carlos, I didn't realize. Yes, you're right, these are very strenuous experiments, and of course you care about getting accurate data. Does this mean I can expect to start seeing more work from you?"

 

He remembered the threats. The way she'd whispered them into his ear, with perfume that smelled heady, wine and rum and so much blood, sweet and spiced and coppery... He remembered the way she promised that Cecil would suffer, if they needed to remove him from the project, as if he wouldn't suffer just as surely with Carlos doing the job.

 

"I need to be given more control over my subject. I have to be able to monitor his diet and see that he's physically able to undergo the more rigorous tests, or we'll never be able to finish them, and I need access to the hospital-- permission to move the subject up to the hospital at my discretion to be able to perform some tests of my own. I don't mean to say anything against the lab you've given me, of course, but for some of these suggestions you've given me, I feel I could really get better results if I was able to make use of some of the medical equipment, get some help from doctors and lab techs who are more specialized to that kind of thing."

 

"Of course." Her smile broadened further. "Carlos, you have no idea how pleased I am to hear the interest you're taking in your work. I was so worried that this wasn't going to work out, and now... Well. You just let me know when you're ready and what kind of space and equipment you need arranged, and I'll see that the subject is moved there securely for you."

 

"I can move him myself-- I mean, I can assist with that. I want to be able to monitor him myself as much as possible. Uh, for science." He added lamely.

 

"Right." Missy grinned, her teeth glinting and artificially perfect. "I'll let you get back to it, then. Call me when the subject is ready for more rigorous testing! I'll approve a recovery diet if you can promise me something within the week."

 

"Within the week." Carlos nodded. "I'm su-sure I can, right. I'll just keep monitoring everything and keep in touch. Thank you."

 

"Thank you." Missy nodded, showing him to the door. "You can find your way back?"

 

"Yes. Definitely. I'm sure you have a lot on your plate."

 

"I'm so glad you've decided to be a team player." She said.

 

Her approval made him feel sick, and slightly dizzy. The smell in the hallway, and the handprint on the door next to hers, did not help matters. When Carlos returned to the lab, Cecil was balled up on his cot again. Seeing him hit Carlos in the gut with too many conflicting feelings. He was absurdly grateful for the human compassion, because he wasn't ready to confront half the things in his head, and at least that one told him whatever kind of man he'd become over the last three years, he wasn't a monster. Not completely.

 

He felt like one, when words like 'beautiful' intruded into his thoughts about Cecil. Cecil was a prisoner, and a human guinea pig, and he clung to Carlos like a man starved for real human interaction. It was wrong to _want_ him. He needed compassion, he needed help, he needed a lawyer or a SWAT team or something, he didn't need the scientist who'd been put in charge of torturing him to think about getting in his pants.

 

He didn't need the scientist who'd been put in charge of torturing him to think about how flimsy those pants were, or how sweet and accommodating he had been when Carlos had washed his face that first day, or how-- wrong as it was-- the collar Strex had put him in accentuated his neck, how something less bulky would be even more beautiful on it, more befitting Cecil's delicacy and sweetness.

 

"Fuck." Carlos sighed under his breath, pressing a hand to the glass of the cage. "It's official. I'm a monster."

 

And Cecil... Cecil sat up and turned, looked at him with the widest eyes, teary again, like Carlos coming back was the best thing ever to happen to him. How long had Strex been keeping him, tormenting him, for Cecil to latch onto Carlos like this so soon, looking at him like some kind of savior for offering basic human decency?

 

Carlos let himself in, and tried not to think about the way Cecil pushed into his touch when he washed his face again. Was this why Strex wanted to give him Cecil? Had they already seen what kind of a horrible person he was? If they had, they approved, certainly. More and more they seemed like the kind of company that would reward whatever sado-sexual power-abusing fiend he'd turned into. Maybe they'd molded him.

 

"I'm a bad person, Cecil." He sighed.

 

Cecil shook his head emphatically, grasping Carlos' wrists.

 

"I am. I... I must be. I don't remember how I got here, but a good person wouldn't... wouldn't be in the position to do the things Strex wants me to do. And you... you're so... I can't." He stood, pulling away. Cecil looked at him like that, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to hold him, to kiss him... It went beyond merely unethical, taking advantage of someone in Cecil's position was...

 

It was evil.

 

He couldn't let himself fall into the trap of thinking Cecil wanted these things from him. It wasn't a question of speech, either-- Cecil could communicate just fine, even if that communication was limited-- but with the state that Strex had him in, he certainly wasn't capable of giving consent, and Carlos was the last person who should be asking for it. They were keeping him undernourished, mentally fuzzy... malleable. And he seemed so starved for kindness, for contact. It didn't matter how he looked at Carlos, or how he clung, he wasn't in control of himself and imagining what it would be like to undress him, that was just wrong.

 

Carlos hated how easy it was to imagine just that, as if he already knew what he would find and how it would all feel under his hands. How Cecil's body would yield to his touch, just as sweetly as Cecil yielded to all his frustrated attempts at caretaking.

 

He'd turned away from Cecil, but a thunk drew his attention back, to where Cecil had hit his leg irons against the bedframe to get Carlos to look.

 

Cecil held out his hand, expression serious, insistent. Carlos placed his own in it, palm up.

 

'You are a good man' Cecil mouthed slowly, tracing the letters out. 'Please remember'.

 

And then, Cecil folded Carlos' fingers over, and lifted his hand, pressing a kiss across his knuckles.

 

It hit Carlos in the pit of his stomach, the urge to grab Cecil, to push him down on the narrow cot and kiss him, to strap his wrists to the frame of it, over his head and to push, to take. He could imagine a room he didn't know, in place of the glass cage, so vivid he almost saw it, eyes open. He could imagine a real bed, imagine Cecil in a gauzy tunic instead of the hospital inpatient garb he wore. He could imagine deep, dark moans instead of the barest sound of breath, and he wasn't sure why it was the voice he imagined for Cecil. And purple bedsheets, because Cecil had said Carlos was right about that being his favorite color. Because it seemed right to picture them.

 

He ran out, before he could act on any part of that urge. When he dared to look back from the door of the lab, Cecil had slid to the floor and had his knees drawn up to his chest, face hidden against them. He was thankful for that. He shouldn't have looked back at all, but he was glad it wasn't to see Cecil's face, to see him hurt or bewildered.


	5. This Fable is Intended for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot Carlos doesn't understand yet. Cecil does what he can-- and if Carlos' plan works, he may get his chance to do more.

It is not Carlos who brings Cecil his next meal. It isn't even one of the lab techs.

 

It's Kevin, and Cecil recoils, thuds to the floor and backs himself into the corner behind his cot. It's not as if he can run-- it's not as if he had anywhere he could run _to_ , even if his legs were free. He can only try for cover, and that does nothing to block out the sound of an amused laugh.

 

"Hi there, friend." Kevin greeted him, voice soft. He set the tray down on Cecil's cot, loomed over him. On the one hand, Cecil did _not_ trust any meal brought by _Kevin_. On the other hand, it actually smelled like food, which was a new development.

 

Kevin smiled wider, and sat down on the cot, next to the tray. He attempted to push a carrot stick at Cecil's mouth, laughing again when Cecil didn't allow it.

 

"Oh, come on. You can be a better team player than that, now, can't you? You wouldn't want to disappoint _Carlos_ , would you? Ah-ah-ah..." He jerked the carrot stick back at Cecil's snarl. "We're all one big happy Strex family, aren't we? Carlos sure is. Well, that's what upper management said, when they approved your new diet plan. Looks healthy!"

 

Cecil shook his head. Carlos was _not_ part of Strex' big happy family. Carlos was _his_ happy family. Carlos was his _home_. Carlos had been spending his spare time moving furniture into a sweet little bungalow, he'd even cat-proofed the half-bath off of the living room in preparation for Cecil moving in with Khoshekh... they'd freshened up the paint on the front door and the porch accents on a Sunday morning together and napped on an inflatable mattress in the living room, they'd done that as soon as the blood was dry on the paperwork! Maybe Carlos didn't remember making a home together, but he'd done the work and he owned half the house and he couldn't be a part of anything Strex called a happy family when what had made him happy was Cecil, and Night Vale.

 

Kevin just chuckled, soft-voiced, and ate the carrot stick. At least those Cecil could trust weren't poisoned... couldn't he? Aside from the things Carlos had managed to sneak to him, he'd been living on that awful gruel since waking up days ago in the cell... it left him feeling weak and fuzzy, and the carrot stick had crunched between Kevin's too-perfect teeth like real carrot. Kevin hadn't keeled over, or blinked out of existence.

 

He didn't feel good about reaching out for one, with Kevin sitting so close to his tray. It felt like bait in a trap. Still, when he did, Kevin didn't come down on him, didn't grab his arm or stab at him with his spoon-- and they hadn't given him a fork or knife, even plastic. Kevin hadn't tried to strangle him, hadn't even yelled 'boo'. Kevin just smiled his usual not-right smile while Cecil nibbled with trepidation first, then all but inhaled the remaining carrot sticks.

 

The soup was a marked improvement over the gruel. It wasn't Cecil's favorite, or even on the short list, but there was chicken in it that seemed like real chicken, and more vegetables, and everything was the color it was meant to be, tasted as it was meant to taste.

 

There was even water, in a flimsy plastic bottle. He hated the smiling sun logo on it, the way 'STREX' wrapped around the label, but if he could keep the bottle instead of having it taken away with the tray, then he could refill it, wouldn't have to resort to cupping his hands under the sink in his glass-walled bathroom. It wasn't the most humiliating part of having a glass-walled bathroom, but it was the most humiliating part of not even being allowed to keep a plastic cup in his cell, and something that had made him regret letting his juice bottle be taken away. When he finished his meal, he held onto the water bottle, curling his whole body around it. He could hear Kevin snort, in amusement or derision, but the tray was taken and he was left with the bottle.

 

"Oh-- and Cecil?" Kevin smiled, from between the two doors that sealed him off from the lab outside his cage. "I want you to think about something. About your place in StrexCorp's perfect plan. I want you to think about why you're receiving special treatment that you haven't earned. Does it mean someone earned it for you? No. Life doesn't work that way. It just means you've been given an... advance loan. So think about what you can do for your happy Strex family, to pay that loan back. About how you can put a smile on upper management's faces. Think about that, Cecil."

 

There was only one kind of smile Cecil wanted to put on Strex' management's faces, and he would need something a hell of a lot better than a plastic bottle to do it with. But it was going to be a lot harder to get his hands on something sharp.

 

A lab tech fed him in the morning, cereal instead of gruel, and a little cup of fruit. He wished he could ask about Carlos, but the lab techs never watched his lips when he tried to mouth things. He tried breathing on the glass until it fogged enough to write, once, but they hadn't looked at that, either. They seemed drone-like, unreal, simply doing tasks that looked vaguely scientific, busywork until someone ordered them to do something real. Even then, whichever tech broke away to see to the task did so... robotically. Another fed him at noon, and so on the cycle went. There wasn't a lot of variety to his meals, but at least over the following two days, they were meals.

 

Carlos finally reappeared after two days. He slunk in late in the morning, looking haggard, and he slipped into Cecil's cell with a cardboard cup in his hand. Once he was inside, Cecil could smell it-- _coffee_. He'd had to learn to function without, Strex had certainly never given him any, but the scent of it was magical.

 

Carlos smiled wearily and offered the cup to Cecil, and that first sip was _perfect_. It was not the eerie plastic perfection of StrexCorp, but the comforting perfection of a cup of coffee delivered by a boyfriend who knew just how many sugars to give you.

 

"I... I think I have-- I hope I have-- some good news for you." Carlos said, wringing his hands together. "I would very much like to be able to give good news to you, Cecil... I hate that I'm a part of all of this, that... that I'm the kind of person... I didn't used to be this kind of person. I don't want to be."

 

Cecil shook his head, but Carlos stopped him with a raised hand.

 

"You don't know. You don't know the thoughts I've had since they brought me down here. And... and I don't know how long I've had them. How long I've been... cruel. Unethical. Cecil, if you knew, you'd hate me. The unforgivable ideas I can't stop..."

 

His shoulders shook, and Cecil threw an arm around them, hurt when Carlos threw him off. He'd only wanted to comfort, was more than willing to put his own feelings aside for the sake of offering instead of taking comfort, and he'd gotten to be unused to Carlos refusing that.

 

"No-- Don't. Please. I don't-- You can't. Forget about it. I've got an escort coming to take you upstairs today. I wish it could be more permanent. I wish-- Just, don't get your hopes up too high. I, uh, I'm only taking you up to the hospital wing. To have the doctors, or the med lab techs, get some other samples."

 

The 'escort' turned out to be three muscular and well armed guards with a wheelchair, which they lifted Cecil into, taking his unfinished coffee away. One walked at his right side, and one took point, while the third pushed. Carlos hurried to walk along at Cecil's left, and he was handsome even from that vantage point, but he looked terribly worried. Almost sick.

 

In the elevator, Carlos didn't look at Cecil, just at the numbers. Cecil looked at Carlos. Carlos was the one thing he thought he could stand to look at, out in the strange and terrifying rest of the building.

 

The security escort lifted Cecil back out of the wheelchair when they reached an exam room, plopping him onto the table, and after a brief staredown, one of them relinquished a key to Carlos.

 

"We'll be right outside." The woman said. Whether it was a promise or a warning, Cecil wasn't entirely sure. What they thought of Carlos, he couldn't know-- he just knew if they didn't think he was dangerous, then the security escort would have been a very different thing. She took the two men outside, and Carlos unlocked the leg irons, hefting them off to the side with a grunt.

 

"There. Oh, Cecil..." He frowned, and immediately started to rummage around the drawers.

 

There was some neosporin, very gently applied, to the spots that had been worn thinnest, and something else that Carlos rubbed into the skin everywhere else, and finally some bandages-- white and gauzy this time, with nary a smiling face to be seen, for which Cecil was grateful.

 

Carlos held one of Cecil's feet after it was all done, perched on the rolling doctor's stool and looking up with sad, worried eyes.

 

"They won't let me take the collar off. Not yet." He sighed. His hands were warm, and Cecil hadn't realized how cold his feet had been, throughout his capture, until Carlos warmed first one and then the other up. "I... It might be instrumental to one of my tests, to take it off. But we haven't come to that yet. I-- I'm putting a lot of things off until you're healthier. That in mind..."

 

He let Cecil's feet go, moving to wash his hands in the exam room sink, and to bring out a pair of sterile containers.

 

"I thought you might be more comfortable if you were allowed to use a bathroom that wasn't completely see-through. To, uh, provide samples, that is." Carlos looked around nervously. It was a look Cecil recognized-- the one Carlos got whenever he suddenly remembered that he was being constantly monitored. "Because, scientifically, it's... difficult to give samples, when you're nervous. That's something everyone knows. I'm sure that any of the doctors here would say the same, since they're so up to date on everything. It would be kind of embarrassing for anyone in a lab coat to not know something like that. You'd wonder if they were just some jerk who woke up one day and said 'hey, anyone can buy a lab coat online', a real doctor or scientist would already know all these things. About how to best get different samples from a subject."

 

Cecil nodded, with a little smile. Carlos may not have remembered covering his tracks in Night Vale, but at least he suspected that StrexCorp was listening. Then he looked back at the little containers stacked one atop the other in Carlos' hand and his brow furrowed. He held up two fingers, confused.

 

"Oh, uh, yeah. The other one is for a stool sample. I figured you'd probably rather also do that yourself? I know it's kind of... but there's an instruction sheet on the bathroom wall, and it means less, you know, privacy invasion. I had to do it when I was still a patient. I think. The time I spent in the hospital here is kind of fuzzy, actually."

 

Cecil took the two containers and let Carlos lead him out and to the little bathroom. One with real walls! It was embarrassing how grateful he felt for that. It felt good to be able to walk, even limping along and leaning against someone. His legs were free, that was the important thing, and he didn't have to lean on Carlos long before he felt confident on his feet.

 

The trick would be just following the instructions without thinking about what he was doing, which didn't seem so hard. It just chafed to have to do it in a Strex facility. If he were home in Night Vale, it would be no problem whatsoever. And if it was really unpleasant, he'd just drink to forget! That wasn't an option, but at least he was well practiced at not dwelling on whatever instructions he had to follow, and before he was really too aware of the passing of time, both sample jars were in the little two-sided cupboard and he was washing his hands, and listening to Carlos speaking in a low voice to the security detail outside the bathroom.

 

He couldn't tell what Carlos was saying to them, and Carlos didn't look at him when he reemerged, but when the escort plopped him back into the wheelchair to return him to his cell, it was minus the leg irons.

 

Carlos sent them off once they reached the lab, and walked Cecil back from the elevator to his cot.

 

"I can't hold them off forever with samples." He whispered against Cecil's hair, as he laid him down. "But I still have a plan... and-- Well. Not to get your hopes up or anything."

 

He pulled the blankets very carefully over Cecil, then took his flimsy water bottle and refilled it, bringing it back to set beside the cot. The last of the cup of coffee was long gone, but Cecil could let that go-- his legs were free again, and as much as a part of him hated to admit it, that really was more important than a quarter of a cup of coffee.

 

Carlos touched the collar briefly, and there was something familiar in his eyes for a moment, something hungry and possessive, but it vanished all too soon into confusion and horror, and Carlos drew back and rushed out of the cell and out of the lab.

 

Cecil sighed, and cuddled down into his not-very-comfortable cot. More comfortable, now that he could roll over onto his side freely without his bound ankles being a problem, and more comfortable for having been tucked in by Carlos... but it hurt, to come so close to feeling recognized, only for Carlos to run out again.


	6. Delayed is Not Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos is terrified of what Strex wants him to do to Cecil... but to be fair, he's also more than a little terrified of what he wants to do to Cecil.
> 
> Cecil is just terrified whenever Carlos is away, and not without reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr, I mentioned that there is a theme in the chapter names. There's not actually a prize for guessing or anything, because... I don't know what that would be. But there's some personal satisfaction, I guess? Eventually there will probably be one that makes it more obvious than it has been so far, but I figured I'd open that up. And while the fic title does not follow the same exact strictures as the chapter titles, it's related in a way...)

It was during one of the interminable meetings with Missy and her business-suited ilk that she let something slip, about moving forward on 'Carlos' pet project', and Carlos knew he'd failed to keep Cecil safe from Strex.

 

"You said I had a week." He protested, getting to his feet.

 

"I said I needed results within the week." She said, with a dismissive wave of the hand.

 

"I had further samples--"

 

"I'm not interested in samples, Carlos, I am interested in the tests we outlined for you. You told me you had ideas that would net me even better results, but I haven't even seen paperwork on those. I've seen bodily waste, I'm afraid that is not what we're looking for here. Victor's been promoted to co-manage your project, and steer you in the right direction."

 

Carlos bolted from the conference room. He didn't know who Victor was-- maybe one of the lab techs, none of them wore a nametag or displayed much in the way of autonomy though, so maybe 'Victor' was just another scientist from a lower-profile project. Maybe he was someone like whoever Carlos used to be, before his accident.

 

He didn't like that thought. Whoever he'd been immediately before the accident, it left him with thoughts he couldn't shake. It left him wanting to do things, things he never would have dreamed of before he came to work for StrexCorp. Awful things, to poor, vulnerable Cecil who was going through enough. Things that would have made his ethics professor faint. And the idea of this 'Victor' person doing any of those things made his blood boil. At least Carlos was trying to fight those thoughts, pervasive as they were, to figure out where they came from and how he could fix himself... But he couldn't go to anyone at Strex for help, he'd learned he was being listened to when he had vented to an empty room about unethical urges only to have Missy congratulate him the next day, with a wink and a hard, oily smile. 

 

When he got down to the lab, Cecil wasn't in his cage, was instead strapped to a table just outside it, while the man Carlos assumed to be Victor administered electric shocks to him. It was awful, seeing Cecil's face contort in a silent scream, the way his muscles jumped and strained. It was awful, when something in him wanted to react in wholly inappropriate ways.

 

"Stop!" He demanded, pushing his way through the small crowd of note-taking lab techs. He physically pulled Victor away from the controls, feeling on the verge of violence. "Stop this! What scientific merit even _is_ there, to what you're doing to this man?"

 

Victor blinked and adjusted his goggles, looking absurdly beetle-y for a moment, before he ignored Carlos completely and pulled the lab techs away to confer. And Cecil... Cecil looked so horribly grateful.

 

"What the hell is going on down here?" Carlos demanded, pushing down on the rising hysteria he could feel bubbling up from his gut. No one answered him, and after staring at Victor and the lab techs, scanning the group for any sign of an answer, he gave up on them and turned his attention back to Cecil.

 

Cecil, who was shaking hard, and breathing hard, and who crawled into Carlos' arms once he was unstrapped from the table.

 

"What's going _on_ down here?" Carlos asked again, his voice small and bewildered.

 

Cecil curled into him, with a shake of the head. He was shirtless, skin clammy as his sweat cooled, and it should have been unfamiliar and unpleasant, but it wasn't.

 

Carlos was half-carrying Cecil back to his cot in the cell when Missy arrived, slamming a fist into the big red button that closed both doors. Carlos could still open them to get out, one at a time, with the pass that he carried. It wasn't terribly reassuring somehow.

 

No. He had to be who Strex expected him to be. He couldn't do anything for Cecil if he wasn't. With that in mind, he deposited Cecil less gently than he would have liked, and strode up to the glass to face his supervisor.

 

"I want Victor gone." He demanded.

 

"I'm afraid that decision is above your pay grade." She smiled. If it could be called a smile.

 

"No one touches the subject except for me. I'm sorry if you weren't prepared for a long-term, in-depth study, but Cecil is _mine_. You gave me this project for a reason, and I will not stand for some half-baked, ham-handed, probably-a-recent-MIT-grad coming in and fucking everything I've worked so hard on up! I've been building a rapport and keeping close tabs on the subject's physical state and this little stunt is going to set me back, or did you not want real results? Because I'm not sure what kind of useful information Victor von Frankenstein there just netted you, but it certainly wasn't-- Science! Usable data! If he wants to fuck around with electricity let him play with one of the lab techs, experiment fodder is what they get paid for, but don't tell other scientists they can come in and mess with my work!"

 

She looked interested, at least. There was the same glint of approval that she'd shown after what he'd believed was a private breakdown.

 

"I see. You would like to be the only one who gets to touch your project. Well... If you're prepared to step up your pace, then I can certainly return Victor to his other projects. And I'm sure you won't let... ethical concerns get in your way. Strex is here to protect you from all of that. There are no review boards hovering over your shoulder here, Carlos, so whatever you need to do to get results, I want you to do it. I think we have an understanding."

 

"I think we do."

 

"Shall I clear the lab for you?"

 

"Please." He huffed. "I need to see what I can salvage out of this mess."

 

Missy grinned at him briefly, something that made his skin crawl, and he had to fight not to show it. Then the grin was gone, and with a snap of her fingers, so was everyone else. She followed the scuttling group of lab techs into the elevator, and then they were gone.

 

Carlos let out a long sigh, his shoulders slumping. When he turned back to Cecil, it was to see wide eyes gazing at him. There was none of the fear or disgust he felt he merited, when even his best intentions were tainted... Cecil didn't draw back when he shuffled towards the cot, even made room for him to sit, crawling into his lap once he did.

 

"I've been a fool, Cecil." He sighed, hand moving to stroke through Cecil's hair on autopilot. "I'm sorry. I... I can't really make this up to you. He never should have touched you. I don't understand why they would even-- Unless it was to punish me. For not getting on with things. But all the tests they've outlined for me are just as useless and barbaric. It's like they aren't even interested in _science_ , they just want to see me _torture_ you. Why? What kind of insane world am I living in, where this is the path my boss is trying to force me down? What does Strex even _get_ out of that? It's cartoon villainy!"

 

Cecil let out something near-noiseless and distressed, as though someone had robbed a whimper of its sound, pushing into Carlos' hand.

 

"How long have they had you here?" Carlos asked, brushing the hair back from Cecil's brow. His thumb settled against the center of Cecil's forehead, stroking in tiny circles that had Cecil's eyes closing and his lips turning up in a gentle smile. "Cecil? Do... do you even know?"

 

It took a couple of tries, before he was able to read the answer Cecil mouthed for him, and he wasn't sure what to do with that information once he had it. Not even two full weeks? They'd had Cecil no longer than they'd had him on the 'project'? That didn't make any sense-- everything he thought he knew was built up on a series of assumptions that Cecil had just sent toppling.

 

One, that Strex was telling him the truth about his accident.

 

Two, that the 'new project' was something that they had had waiting in the wings for him since before that accident.

 

Clearly the second was not true, because even if Cecil wasn't sure about the time of his capture by a day or two in either direction, there was no mistaking the basic timeframe. And if the second was not true, then why should he believe the first? The second hinged on the first, because he'd been told the decision to put him on the project related to his accident.

 

Three, that Cecil had been kept locked up for a long time without human contact, without anyone showing him any kindness, because otherwise why would he latch onto Carlos so readily?

 

"Cecil..." Carlos breathed, his heart thudding. "Why do you trust me?"

 

Cecil looked up at him at that, and for the first time, he did draw back, did look frightened. Carlos immediately turned to see if Missy wasn't behind him again, and couldn't figure out how that simple question had scared Cecil out of his lap, where the other man seemed unreasonably comfortable only a moment before.

 

Cecil didn't draw back when Carlos reached after him, though, didn't flinch once when Carlos touched the heavy collar with one finger.

 

"This isn't right." He frowned, to himself as much as to Cecil. "It doesn't suit you."

 

Cecil smiled wryly.

 

'Purple', he mouthed.

 

Carlos wasn't sure what his favorite color had to do with that.

 

Except Carlos _knew_ Cecil's favorite color. He didn't guess, he knew. He knew what Cecil looked like shirtless before he came in to see him half-naked and strapped to the table, the exact scatter of his chest hair and how much fat he carried on his frame and how he carried it. Carlos _knew_ Cecil.

 

"Oh." He pulled back, his head aching like it wanted to split open, the revelation uncontainable. "Oh. _Fuck_."

 

The bed he'd pictured them in, was it real somewhere? The voice he'd heard in every dream since waking, since his 'accident', and Cecil, beautiful and debauched and looking at him with the same gratitude he displayed on being brought unexpected food... Cecil stretched out underneath him with his wrists bound and looking ecstatic for it. It couldn't all be real, could it?

 

Then... was _he_ the subject of the real experiment? It still didn't make sense, but it made no less than anything else. He reached a shaky hand back out to cup Cecil's cheek. What would Strex do to him if he remembered? What would Strex do to _Cecil_?

 

"Cecil, if I told you I was going to make this right, would you believe me?" He asked.

 

Cecil nodded.

 

"Why?" Carlos laughed, but he pulled Cecil into a hug anyway, to whisper into his ear. "It's all coming back... Just wait. Just be ready."

 

Cecil hugged him hard.

 

"It's kind of a relief to know I'm not a monster." He sighed, easing back out of Cecil's grasp. "Rest for now. We're going to have a lot of science to do over the next couple of days."

 

Cecil beamed up at him. For once, it didn't come with a sharp shock of guilt. This time, it just bolstered his confidence. The Cecil he was beginning to remember would be all right, if Carlos could just get him out of the cell... the Cecil he thought he could remember, bit by bit... that Cecil would do just fine, when the time came.


	7. The Emperor's New Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos puts his plan into action, and says 'science' a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (well, AO3 ate my attempt at posting last night when my internet wigged out, so my apologies for that.)

Missy had beamed her approval when Carlos mentioned wanting to look at Cecil's brain, and her enthusiasm had been dampened when he'd requested access to an MRI and not a surgical suite, but as soon as Carlos explained that this would help him to better tailor his experiments for 'the kind of results you're interested in', she had come around.

 

She stood on the outside of the glass to talk to Carlos, while he stayed near Cecil, and Cecil clung to the back of Carlos' lab coat, casting distrustful looks at Missy and at the few lab techs who hadn't been moved to other projects along with the unfortunate Victor.

 

"I mean, I don't have to tell _you_." Carlos waved a hand airily. "Since you're obviously so familiar with _science_."

 

"Yes." Missy chortled. "I'm wearing a lab coat."

 

"I can see that." Carlos nodded. He'd also seen inside her office, where she had an MBA and no indicators of an actual pursuit of science, academically or professionally. But, she was in charge of the scientists, and she wore a lab coat, and she liked to present herself as an authority, and that was useful.

 

"And once you've looked at the subject's brain?"

 

"I'll have a better idea of how effective the tests you've outlined will be, and what needs altering. It's like I said." He shrugged.

 

"Carlos, I want to believe we're on the same page when you say 'effective'." Missy said.

 

Carlos smiled. It was a cheerful smile. A Desert Bluffs smile. No-- it was a Strex smile. So perfect Cecil thought the company would probably want to bottle it and trademark it and make a lot of money off of Carlos' perfect teeth. If he hadn't known better, it would have scared the hell out of him. But Carlos had held him close and whispered in his ear, and he put a lot of trust in that.

 

"I believe we're on the same page, Missy." Carlos said. "And... just one security escort this time, I think. It works better for me. I'm sure you're familiar with the _science_ of behavior."

 

"Carlos, I am familiar with every kind of science." Missy huffed.

 

"Well, I've been working very hard to build up a rapport with the subject-- here, see... Cecil, you trust me, right?"

 

Carlos' smile was still unnaturally wide and bright, when he turned it to Cecil, but Cecil nodded anyway.

 

"That's right." Carlos patted his head, and winked at him, turned just so that Missy wouldn't see. "That's good. And you like me, don't you, Cecil?"

 

Cecil nodded again. This was the closest thing to a public scene he'd ever been a part of, and he wasn't sure it really counted-- he still didn't know how much Carlos remembered, and this was for survival, not for fun. Even so, there was a tight, tingling feeling in the pit of his stomach, a combination of the anxiety of any step forward in Carlos' escape plan and the thrill of being praised right out in the open, not in front of just anyone, but in front of the woman who'd been doing her hardest to make his life hell.

 

"Good." Carlos cooed. "Well today, we're going on a little trip upstairs, since you're behaving. And you want to make me happy, isn't that right? You would never run away from me, would you, Cecil?"

 

Cecil shook his head vehemently, and Carlos pulled out a candy bar, breaking off a piece and feeding it to him. Cecil supposed he could have taken it with his hands, but he didn't. He ate right from Carlos', and watched Missy from the corner of his eye as she approved for all the wrong reasons.

 

"I'm impressed."

 

"You should be." Carlos shrugged. "Your people didn't make it easy for me."

 

"I don't mean with your pet training exercise, I mean you, Carlos. I was worried you wouldn't be able to hack it. I was wrong. I've never been so happy to say so."

 

"One escort. I don't want to make my subject unduly nervous before the scan. You know, for the results. It would throw them off. Science."

  
"Science." Missy laughed. "One escort. I'll make the call."

 

She retreated to a corner of the lab, to speak in hushed tones into a walkie talkie, and Carlos stroked Cecil's hair a few times.

 

"Sorry." He whispered. "If this is embarrassing."

  
Cecil shook his head, smiling.

 

They didn't wait long, before their security escort arrived, pushing the wheelchair again. He brought it up to the outer door of the cell, and Carlos escorted Cecil to it, fussing attentively, but displaying the same cold cheer to both Missy and the security escort.

 

"It's science." Missy explained dismissively, before the escort could speak.

 

Carlos strode along next to the wheelchair, for the short walk to the elevator, and stood staring at the numbers as he had before. Cecil thought it was a lovely vantage point of Carlos' jaw, and he looked so _tall_ from a low angle. And so serious. Cecil felt his faith in Carlos' plan redouble.

 

When they reached the room with the MRI, a medical lab tech stopped them with an outstretched hand and a stern expression. It was still a chipper grin, but it was a stern one.

 

"I have the subject to be scanned."

 

"Oh no you don't. I don't have time to clean up after that, if you want to tear his head off with a giant magnet, you'll have to go to the fourth floor."

 

Carlos made a show of looking at Cecil and then back at the machine, and giving a little laugh, as if she'd just told a joke.

 

"Oh." He chuckled. "Right! That would kill him! That won't do at all, we have so many more tests to run. Uh..." He glanced at the security escort's name badge. "Gary? Would you mind getting that collar off for me so I can get a look at the subject's brain?"

 

Gary looked down at his own nametag and then back up at Carlos, brow furrowing, professional smile dimming a moment in thought.

 

"The subject..." He said slowly. "Can go half an hour outside of the collar, without vocal function returning. Y-yes. Yes. Okay."

 

"Thanks, Gar. _Real_ team player!" Carlos nodded, beaming. "I'd love to get a look at that contraption!"

 

Cecil winced as it was removed, looking up at Carlos. Carlos, who was very carefully not looking down at Cecil in return. Once the removed collar was placed in his hands, he turned it over, inspecting the spines that lined the inside. Then he nodded once, satisfied, and hit Gary upside the head with the thing as hard as he could.

 

There was no crack of bone, just a loud clang, but Gary went down just the same.

 

"Cecil, Gary's shoes are a good size match for you, I'd like you to put those on." He said calmly. "You can try his pants and jacket if you'd like, but if you don't want to, we'll get you an alternative. You."

 

He turned to the lab tech, whose grin looked terrified. She pointed to herself, and Carlos nodded.

 

"Don't call for help." He ordered, loading Gary into the MRI, and stealing a taser from his belt. "I wouldn't, if I were you. I would go somewhere else, very fast, and pretend I wasn't here at all. Because if I was here, and something like this happened on _my_ watch? Well... Strex wouldn't be very happy with me about that. _I_ wouldn't want to make Strex unhappy. Not when the basement labs are about to find themselves short a test subject. That's a _bad_ time to make Strex unhappy."

 

She skittered from the room with the fear of a smiling god in her eyes. Cecil sat in the wheelchair to tie his stolen shoes, and Carlos started pushing him down the hallway.

 

"I wish we could afford to start that machine." Carlos hissed. "It would definitely start some alarms-- I think Gary is made out of _metal_."

 

Cecil nodded.

 

"Just stay seated for now." Carlos wheeled them into the elevator, punched in the floor where his little living quarters were. "The security cameras aren't going to be malfunctioning for very long... when they come back on, we need to be far away from where Strex expects us to be. And you can't be dressed like that."

 

Cecil could really only nod again, as Carlos wheeled him into a little apartment.

 

Well, he reflected, 'apartment' was a really generous word. And the furnishings were so Strex. So streamlined and bright, a lot of black and gold... he couldn't fathom being comfortable in a place like that. But then, he couldn't fathom being comfortable in Desert Bluffs, either.

 

Carlos set him on the foot of the bed and folded the wheelchair up, stashing it in his shower and bringing a first aid kit back to Cecil, where he ministered to his abused neck gently.

 

"I'm so, so... so sorry that this happened to you, Cecil." He kissed Cecil's temples. "I'm so sorry. Well. In half an hour I guess I'll find out if you're the voice in my dreams. We need to be out of here by then. Hang on."

 

He went to his closet, pulling out suits and ties. Nothing he had fit Cecil very well, but in the Strex uniform, he would be a lot less conspicuous than he would in his thin white patient scrubs.

 

"The elevator has a button marked 'garage'." He grinned at Cecil, offering him a hand. "Let's go steal a car."


	8. The Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's just one snag in Carlos' perfect escape plan, and it's oddly Cecil-shaped.

"Just walk, keep your head bowed towards me and don't let anyone stop us." Carlos instructed. "I used Missy's computer to alter the security system maintenance procedure so that everything would all shut down at once, instead of in carefully-planned alternating blocs. The maintenance crew should all be up handling the scheduled sectors, and that's where they'll have beefed up security to compensate for the cameras being down..."

 

Cecil nodded, and walked, and kept his head down. Carlos held up a clipboard and gestured broadly to it whenever they passed anyone, obscuring their faces and turning them into part of a bustling work environment.

 

Cecil was listening, with rapt, wide-eyed attention, and Carlos shrugged, with an embarrassed laugh.

 

"I'm not a master hacker or anything, really. I mean, her password was 'password'." He explained. "The rest was just really lucky. For all the things Strex seems prepared for, there are a lot of things they... aren't."

 

He ushered Cecil into the elevator, and prayed they'd hit the garage with no interruptions. He'd picked the far one, that seemed like it would attract less traffic. As long as no one got on who would recognize him-- or Cecil-- he thought they would make it all right, but he still didn't want to have to deal with anyone. Maybe a constant, whispered prayer wouldn't make any real difference, but it gave him something to do, something to focus on other than all the things that could still go wrong and all the abuses that Cecil had suffered already.

 

In the elevator, Cecil held his hand, squeezing periodically and mouthing his own prayers, words that Carlos could not recognize when he stopped to look at Cecil's lips.

 

They were lips he was beginning to remember kissing. He was beginning to remember a lot of things about them.

 

"Hey." He smiled, reaching out to brush his thumb across them. "I'm going to get you home. I... I'll remember better, at home. Won't I?"

 

Cecil nodded.

 

"You may have to help me find it. What, uh... Where do we live?"

 

'Night Vale', Cecil mouthed, and Carlos could hear it in his head, warm and loving in a deep, dark voice.

 

Night Vale, the most scientifically interesting town in the nation, where he'd headed to with a ragtag research team and a hastily-packed car, a trailer loaded with scientific equipment... He'd gone out to the desert with barely any personal belongings, but it had become his home. He'd bought clothes and things he'd liked at the Target there, and had friends ship him his stuff, anything he didn't want to be without when he realized Night Vale was a long-term thing. Rich in research opportunities, and...

 

And Cecil. He'd met Cecil. He wasn't supposed to meet someone, but he had. Cecil was the smooth voice on the radio who had stammered when he'd given Carlos a personal phone number. Cecil was his first call when... When something had happened. Maybe several somethings. He'd used that number, that much he knew for sure.

 

"Night Vale." Carlos whispered. "You talk on the radio."

 

Cecil nodded, his smile bright, and it struck Carlos just how cruel robbing him of his voice had been, how perfectly tailored to hurt him right where it mattered.

 

"Less than half an hour." He promised, barely touching the side of Cecil's neck, where he knew bandages lay under his shirt collar. They were visible, where the button had to remain undone, the tie knotted loosely. Cecil just smiled harder and squeezed his hand.

 

They exited onto the garage, hands dropping away from each other, and they prowled the rows of identical sedans in unison. 'STREX23', one license plate read. 'STRX459', said another. 'STREEXXX', proclaimed a third.

 

And there across the aisle, a man was getting into SCORPDB5.

 

It was more moment of panic than clear planning when Carlos shot him with the taser, but it worked just the same.

 

It worked spectacularly, and the man who owned SCORPDB5 was definitely made of metal.

 

"Oh..." Said a soft and faintly-disapproving voice. "Was that really necessary?"

 

Carlos whirled around, putting himself between Cecil and Kevin.

 

"Dammit, how do you reload this thing?" He turned the taser over in his hands, daring quick glances down at it. The wires were still fully extended, prongs still sticking into the sparking executive.

 

"No idea!" Kevin answered cheerfully. "I can sure take a look for you! Where are you heading today, friend? I can't help but notice you've got some StrexCorp property with you there."

 

"Yeah, I... wound up borrowing it." Carlos tightened his grip on the taser. "I wasn't planning on taking it far."

 

Kevin laughed. "I wasn't talking about _that_."

 

"You stay away from him!" Carlos took a step back, herding Cecil along behind him. His voice bounced off the high concrete ceiling, between the thick, sturdy pillars, each painted with a bright yellow stripe and a blocky 'C1'. His footsteps echoed, and Cecil's, but Kevin's were silent as he stalked forward to keep up with them. "Cecil isn't anyone's property!"

 

"Isn't he?"

 

They stumbled back into one of the identical sedans. 'Where the Heck is Pine Cliff?', a bumper sticker asked, black lettering in 'Jokerman' across a yellow background. Another sedan's sticker proclaimed the owner's child an honor student, and one said 'Support Desert Bluffs Cacti', a statement which made absolutely no sense to Carlos, and he chalked up his ability to take in something as meaningless as bumper stickers and his own echoing footsteps to heightened senses. It was, he hoped, one of those things that happened when you were in a dangerous situation.

 

"I think this time, upper management is going to listen to me..." Kevin said, his tone conversational as he sauntered closer. "If your little friend here survives long enough for them to intervene. He's just... _filled_ with _imperfections_ , Cecil Palmer. It's all I can see when I look at him."

 

This put cracks into the mask, into the placidness, but it didn't affect Kevin's smile in the least to spit the words out angrily. His smile was as wide and cheerful and perfect as ever.

 

"That sounds a lot like your problem." Carlos adjusted his grip on the taser, prepared to use it as a blunt object.

 

"Oh, it is my problem." Kevin nodded. "It's very much my problem, to have this... this double, this imperfect double of me, walking around. You don't know what that's like. To know there's a man with your face and your haircut? Walking around and, and... worshiping pagan blood gods! Criticizing big business! Cheering for the wrong sports teams!"

 

Behind Carlos, Cecil gave a hoarse squeak of protest and grabbed at the back of his coat, and before him, Kevin just grinned, wide and cold and poisonous.

 

"I'm going to kill him." Kevin smiled. "And then all my troubles will be over. No _double_ perverting the proper order of things. No _imperfect_ mister Palmer. Just me. But you don't need to be afraid, Carlos. You have such _potential_. Why, all we have to do is wipe away those pesky memories and we can put you right back to work. No distractions like before. And you won't remember our little friend here at all. Why..." He laughed. "You'll just know _me_! Won't that be lovely. Maybe we can really get to know each other. I mean, I'm clearly your type, _sans_ imperfections."

 

Kevin seemed pleased with himself, amused even, and Carlos felt his stomach roil at all of the implications. That he could ever not worry, when Cecil's life was being threatened, that having his memories erased again was somehow a good thing, a bonus prize. He wanted to snarl and spit, defiant, to say that he would rather die with Cecil, right there in the parking garage. His words stuck in his throat in the face of Kevin's unerring grin, and his grip slacked on the taser in his hands.

 

It was yanked from his grip, and Cecil pushed past him, smashing the thing into Kevin's temple with a near-silent shout. He only just made contact, the blow dampened by Kevin's arm blocking him, Cecil's hitting against it and the taser barely hitting hard enough to raise a bruise. Kevin laughed again and the taser went skittering out of Cecil's grip as well, sliding beneath a sedan whose bumper sticker proclaimed, in yet another offensive font, that 'vegetarian' was an 'old Indian word for lousy hunter'.

 

Carlos decided that the humanizing touch that the bumper stickers provided to the rows of identical, Strex-branded sedans didn't actually make them any less terrifying, and just made their owners seem like people he wanted as little to do with as possible. Kevin's sedan had no bumper stickers, just a smiling sun air freshener dangling from the rear view mirror. Somehow he knew without any context he could call to mind that it would smell like oranges. 

 

Kevin finally managed to shove Cecil away, and Cecil caught himself against the trunk of one of the sedans, air huffing out of him. Carlos took the opportunity to launch himself at Kevin from behind, throwing himself onto the man's back and wrapping an arm around his throat. Kevin stumbled backwards, backwards, trying to keep his throat away from Carlos' arm to little avail, and pushing Carlos back as he did, the two of them dancing around each other's feet as they struggled to remain upright. Kevin had a few inches of height on Carlos, but with the arm locked around his throat, it was anything but an advantage, Carlos pulling him down, and he did the only thing he could do. The path they took was somewhat winding, but he backed them towards one of the concrete pillars and threw his weight into Carlos.

 

It took the air out of him when his back hit, and he was ready for the loud crack and the pain of the back of his skull hitting the pillar as well, but it didn't. When Kevin broke free of his grip, Carlos looked over to see Cecil, his expression pained but determined, one hand cupping the back of Carlos' head. It had to hurt, he was sure, and he was even more impressed with Cecil's reflexes, though he had to admit that the stumbling trip he'd taken to even be knocked into the pillar was a slow one. Still, there was no time to say anything, to do anything. Kevin had rounded on Cecil, and they both had to focus on their attacker.

 

Carlos took an elbow to the gut hard on his second attempt at getting hold of Kevin's neck from behind, stumbling back, and Cecil was still reeling from everything he'd been through, hit the ground with an exhalation of air that was at once too quiet and far too audible. Kevin stepped on his hand, and that... that was sickeningly audible.

 

Carlos grabbed Kevin's hair, yanking his head back and down, and when his glasses went askew, Carlos grabbed for those as well, hurling them down and stepping on them. The crunch of glass beneath his heel was satisfying, worth the scratches that Kevin clawed into the back of his hand. He released him, preparing to swing a fist for his jaw the moment he turned around.

 

"You!" He shouted, and his voice sounded strange bouncing back to him from so many directions. " _You're_ imperfect-- you're the perversion! The _abberation_! Your smiling _god_ is imperfect!"

 

Kevin's grin crumpled, and Carlos grabbed at his hair again, swung him down at the trunk of the nearest sedan, head hitting with a heavy thud that did not sound like metal. He dropped Kevin, but aimed a kick at his ribs for good measure.

 

"The way you're cruel, and the way you smile, and the way that sick, ugly yellow Strex tie doesn't go with your complexion, everything about you is just a twisted parody of everything Cecil is. And no matter how many times you erased my memories, I would never, _ever_ see any perfection in you." He spat. "Cecil isn't the 'imperfect double', you are."

 

"Imperfect..." Kevin moaned, spitting out a mouthful of blood and two teeth. "He's..."

 

"He doesn't have to be perfect. But he is immeasurably better than _you_. We're going home. Don't stop us. Consider it a failed experiment. Come on, Cecil."

 

Cecil wrapped his arms around Carlos, gingerly, and the two of them limped towards SCORPDB5, where Carlos very carefully used the rubber sole of his shoe to kick away the still-sparking executive, and to separate the key fob from his hand. He gave it a moment, before carefully handling the plastic key cap and none of the metal.

 

Once he had Cecil situated in the passenger's seat, he slid in behind the wheel to get the engine going and the air conditioner on.

 

"Ready?" He asked, laughing at Cecil's answering expression. "I'm with you. Let's go home."


	9. The Brave Tin Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road home at last...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait! I was going to take just a little time off for my brother's birthday, but then I've just been really disgustingly sick for... um, well, a really long time. And it got in the way.
> 
> Short chapter, for which I am also sorry.

Carlos drove. The road out of Desert Bluffs pointed, he hoped, towards Night Vale.

 

It occurred to him that there was probably more than one road out of Desert Bluffs, but if he wound up in the wrong town, then he'd buy a map and plot a route home that didn't take him back into that terrible place. Speed and distance were the important things. Cecil had suffered in his mental absence, and he couldn't afford to get them both caught again. He had to make his way _home_ , for the both of them.

 

Cecil sat silently for the first half hour of the ride, with a hand on Carlos' knee, as he waited for his voice to return. Carlos had the road to pay attention to, at least-- a minor distraction from the wait.

 

"Perfect Carlos." Cecil rasped at last, and though it was hoarse and weary, Carlos was sure it was the voice in his dreams just the same.

 

It seemed right, that that should be the first thing he heard Cecil say. It seemed wrong, that after everything, Cecil should call him perfect.

 

"I'm not perfect, Cecil." He laughed bitterly. "I'm... broken."

 

Cecil rested his head on Carlos' shoulder.

 

"So am I."

 

"No. No, you... You know who you are, though, Cecil. And through everything, you've been so resilient. Not like me. I'm such a damn mess."

 

"I don't remember everything. I remember everything about you. But... my past has holes in it."

 

"Shh, shh... you need to rest your voice, that sounds painful. You can tell me later. But I still think... I still think I'm..."

 

Cecil squeezed his knee, and Carlos fell silent as well. He tried to tune in the radio, but there was static for a long stretch of road no matter where he had the dial. The first thing he was able to pick up was...

 

He shook his head just a little, because it couldn't possibly be right. A numbers station? But Cecil perked up at it, smiled at him.

 

"Home." Cecil whispered.

 

Carlos let the numbers station play.

 

Before long, Cecil's expression was one of pure bliss, and a sign read 'Now Entering Night Vale', though there was not yet much in sight.

 

'Population: Ineffable', the sign read, and Carlos didn't know what to make of that, but Cecil was happy.

 

There was a roadblock, before any other signs of civilization, and Carlos slowed to a stop, feeling a cold sweat break out. Whatever he'd expected, though, it wasn't what greeted them.

 

The little checkpoint was made of garbage and duct tape and what looked like a helicopter rotor, and instead of a police officer, the sedan was approached by a girl who couldn't have been older than thirteen, a large rock in one fist and a long knife in the other.

 

There were other children, he saw, perched around the checkpoint, the youngest perhaps ten, the oldest sixteen or so.

 

"You better turn around." The girl said, her voice cold, as he began to roll down his window. "We don't want more Strex here. You turn around and you'll still have tires."

 

Her expression changed, though, once the window was down. A second girl, maybe a little younger, paler, wearing what looked like a Girl Scout uniform, scampered down from a nearby rock and ran up to Cecil's side of the car. The first motioned to the other children, and the arm that was once a helicopter rotor was lifted, a long row of sharp spikes dragged from the road. 

 

"Go on through." The girl nodded.

 

Carlos turned to Cecil, confused, only to see Cecil hanging out the window, hugging the second girl and whispering to her, before letting her go.

 

She hurried back to join the others, and they watched solemnly as Carlos drove on towards Night Vale.

 

"What was that?"

 

"Tamika Flynn and her army. And my niece." Cecil croaked, settling back in against Carlos' shoulder.

 

"Should... that sound normal to me?"

 

Cecil just leaned up and kissed his cheek.

 

Carlos ached. He was weary. His clothes were uncomfortable, and Cecil's had to be moreso, and they were both bruised and bloodied and in need of the comforts of home. Cecil gave directions once they reached the town, and as much as Carlos wanted to be home, wherever that was, he was glad that Cecil took them to a hospital first-- he needed it, with his hand.

 

Carlos had a set of expectations, and the hospital did not meet them-- for one, everyone there seemed to know him, and to be relieved to see the two of them. They were whisked into a room together right away by a nurse who fussed over Cecil as if he was family. He didn't think they were-- they didn't look related-- but she clearly knew him and cared about him, and knew him as well. By reputation, he assumed, since she did not expect him to know her. 

 

There was a doctor as well, sooner than Carlos expected to see one, and before too long they were being sent on their way. Carlos thought he was supposed to feel relieved, but he just felt dizzy, like something big had spat him out on the sidewalk in front of the hospital.

 

The next set of directions were to a house. It wasn't the house he'd seen glimpses of when he'd tried to dig through his memories, but once they were inside, he recognized it as his.

 

No. _Theirs_.

 

"Home." He breathed. Immediately, his eyes watered a little, and he figured he couldn't be surprised, they hadn't been home to dust in two weeks.

 

"Home." Cecil nodded.

 

Bathing Cecil was a job he had to undertake, with Cecil's hand out of commission, but as much as his body protested another job to do, he felt it had to be done. And he felt it was only right he do it. It felt like a _duty_.

 

Cecil was sweet and compliant, and that no longer felt wrong or frightening. This was their home, this was where they were safe, and caring for Cecil was his duty. He could finally trust himself.

 

He went slowly, despite the urge to hurry up and be in bed already, going over everything unbandaged with a careful hand. Cecil's body was as he'd pictured-- as he'd _remembered_ \-- it, recent injuries aside, and Cecil sighed at nearly every touch. The lavender bath salts he recognized as his own-- he didn't remember taking many baths, but after long days in the field, he often filled a tub with warm water and soothing salts and soaked his feet while he typed up and organized all his findings on his laptop. He wondered if he took baths more often, when he had Cecil to take them with. The house certainly had a big enough tub for two, though he sat on the low stool just outside it to care for Cecil.

 

Once Cecil was washed and carefully toweled dry, Carlos took a quick shower for himself. He needed it, but he hadn't gone as long without bathing properly as Cecil had. Poor Cecil, reduced to sponge baths over the sink in that awful glass-walled bathroom... Cecil sat on the stool to watch, with a sleepy, pleased smile, and Carlos smiled back.

 

Carlos' smile fell when he saw The Thing. It almost looked like a cat, except for where he didn't.

 

"What the hell is that?" He yelped, clinging to the edge of the tub.

 

"There's daddy's baby boy!" Cecil squealed at the same time, picking the thing up and hugging it. "Oh-- Carlos, sorry. You'll remember Khoshekh. He's our cat. My cat. He was the station cat, but he's staying here with us, he's been recovering. Oh, I see someone's been feeding you! Good boy!"

 

"Cecil, I'm--"

 

"Allergic to cats, I know. You've got allergy pills, and I promise, he's really good about not climbing on your face! He usually likes to stay in the half-bath off the living room, it's more familiar to him, he doesn't go into your office at all and he hardly ever comes into the bedroom, he just misses us."

 

Carlos had been about to say 'not sure that _is_ a cat', but he accepted things as they were. Clearly he'd been all right with owning it before.

 

Finally, he towelled himself off, and Cecil wiped his arms and chest down with his own damp towel before leading Carlos to bed, which Carlos appreciated. He wanted to be able to cuddle Cecil without clinging cat hair setting off his allergies. He wanted to be able to hold this man he barely remembered, so badly he could think of almost nothing else. Home provided the illusion of safety at least, and he was so, so tired.

 


	10. Everything in the Right Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Carlos and Cecil have been home for a while, to mostly recover from their ordeal...

Carlos was piecing together more and more of his time in Night Vale. Being home with Cecil helped, though the house still felt unfamiliar. Because it was new, Cecil promised him.

 

Cecil felt right, even if Carlos only remembered him in bits and pieces. Cecil curled into his chest with a soft sigh in their bed and smiled at every touch, and those all felt familiar. Cecil waited patiently, which Carlos was grateful for even as he couldn't fathom how the man did it. But that was Cecil, he'd quickly learned and was slowly remembering. Patient, sweet Cecil...

 

His team at the lab had been glad to see him, and that helped a lot, even if they insisted he take real time off. He remembered names and faces there, and he remembered the house that didn't exist, the town beneath the bowling alley-- which explained his scars-- and other little mysteries. Like the invisible corn, and the fact that when Khoshekh had been the station pet, he'd floated. Cecil promised he would be again someday, and that Carlos wouldn't always have to suffer with his allergies, but Carlos remembered holding his boyfriend close through a fit of sobs, and promising to put a shelf and a little ramp in in the guest bathroom so that Khoshekh could stay with them and occupy a spot four feet in the air next to their sink, at least most of the time.

 

He'd seen his handiwork, and half remembered building it. He'd seen his little home office with his rock collection-- old ones and some local specimens-- and his big poster of the periodic table of elements. His glass-fronted bookshelves were all different types of specimens, and a little action figure of Albert Einstein, and when Cecil had explained that his books were being kept in boxes, he remembered it was because they might not have been approved by the City Council.

 

The kitchen was in order, was really pretty nice, and he remembered making albondigas in another kitchen, but he'd been making it for Cecil...

 

He had a lot of half-memories, but not enough whole ones. And too many from Desert Bluffs, that woke him up in the middle of the night sometimes. He didn't know how to forgive himself for not stopping it sooner, and for the way arousal mingled with horror at some of the treatment Cecil had suffered through. It was easier knowing he was at least supposed to find Cecil attractive, that the memories of making love to him were real, but they'd come with such horrible timing, and he didn't know how to talk to Cecil about it all now that Cecil could talk.

 

Cecil could talk beautifully, and he spoke often, little stories with familiar names. Carlos didn't always know why they were familiar, but they were, and hearing Cecil talk about things as if they were normal was sometimes a real balm. 

 

"I'll be going back to work." He announced, beaming, as Carlos served them both chicken and rice one evening. "I got the phone call while you were cooking. Apparently the numbers in Night Vale have been down since I've been gone. Well, not 'down' so much as 'nonexistent'."

 

"I'll bet." Carlos swallowed his worry and leaned over to kiss Cecil's forehead, and Cecil beamed even harder. "I think I'd better get back to the lab, too. I've read over my old notes and I think I'm ready. I remember a lot of our current projects, and... It's just time. I... Will you be safe?"

 

Cecil nodded. "I think so. Strex doesn't want to lose money. They thought they could cut costs by having one host broadcasting to both towns, but if no one tunes in then they can't get advertisers and without advertisers, they won't get money. And since they've made the whole thing very profit-oriented, that's important, I guess. It used to be, you know, _community_ radio. But then, nobody donates either, if no one is listening. I mean, we've always had sponsors! But that's only because it does take some money to run everything at a radio station. It was always limited commercial interruption. Either way, they do need listeners. And while I was gone, do you know only _one_ person tuned in every day?"

 

"I'm not surprised." Carlos sat down, reaching across the table to take Cecil's hand for a quick squeeze. "Night Vale loves their local host."

 

"Of _course_ it was Steve Carlsberg." Cecil grumbled, but he couldn't fall too far into a bad mood with Carlos flattering him. "Dinner smells wonderful."

 

"Well, you've been taking such good care of me while I've been recovering, and trying to do everything with your hand in a splint, and I wanted to do something you'd really like." He shrugged. There were bits of bell pepper in the rice, and bubbles of empty-seeming space where he knew there were niblets of invisible corn, and he was almost used to that. He really liked putting the corn in soup, watching them float looking like actual bubbles, and he didn't know if that would ever get old, but he was no longer afraid to eat it. It just tasted like corn.

 

"You take care of me, too." Cecil ducked his head, and blushed.

 

Carlos supposed it was true. He'd mostly been feeding them out of cans, heating things up in the microwave, while they were both recovering from the worst of their ordeal, but he had been helping Cecil bathe, had been cuddling him through his own nightmares. They'd both done that for each other, though. Cecil had gone above and beyond... Cecil had laid out his clothes for the first couple of days, showing him where he kept everything in this new house, and had been so eager to do any little thing to help, fetching what Carlos needed, helping him to re-learn his way around the house and around the kitchen in particular.

 

The kitchen had been intuitive, though, and Carlos suspected he'd been the one to move everything into it.

 

Cecil had made the best scrambled eggs Carlos had ever eaten, one-handed, though, and doted with such bright affection, and all on top of everything he must have felt, losing a part of his boyfriend the way he had, something he still had to deal with every time Carlos failed to recognize some inside joke or significant memory. He hated seeing Cecil's face fall when that happened... the way it had the other day when Cecil had been telling one of his stories and Carlos had asked who Gino was, or when Carlos had explained that he didn't study dendrology and clearly a different answer had been anticipated, or when he'd mentioned not wanting to go to Arby's-- _Arby's_ , of all places, and Cecil had nodded and said 'okay' in a way which suggested it was not okay at all.

 

"You've been doing a lot for me, though." Carlos insisted. "And I haven't been remembering everything as fast as we both want."

 

Cecil opened his mouth to protest, but just nodded. "I don't blame you."

 

"I know you don't. I'm frustrated with myself, though, sometimes. About a lot of things. I still don't feel like me. Not enough. Too much still confuses me... I'm me with parts missing, I guess, except to me it feels like all this new stuff has been added in, in pieces that don't make sense and aren't in order, and I'm afraid of hurting you, I... I don't want to hurt you. I'm just afraid I always will. I don't know the wrong thing to say until I've already said it. I don't know... I don't know how to be the man I'm supposed to be now. I worry I won't ever remember all of the things you need me to remember. I just want to be good to you, when you've been nothing but good for me. And I keep seeing things I wish I could forget..."

 

Cecil scooted his chair around the table, so that he could cuddle up to Carlos' side, laying his head against the other man's shoulder, and Carlos' hand fell to squeeze Cecil's knee.

 

"I remembered more, today. It's not what I wish I could remember." Carlos whispered.

 

"Do you want to tell me?"

 

He didn't, but he thought maybe he should. "I was coming to see you. I had sandwiches. I... I pulled into the station and I got out of the car, and I had a bag with sandwiches. I was going to surprise you. And when I got to the door, there were two men. I didn't know them. They weren't the Sheriff's Secret Police, and they didn't work for the station, I didn't think... and my brain still... still slides away from remembering. Someone grabbed my arm. Someone said... something about sports. I guess it was an analogy, but I never really cared for sports analogies, and then I got hit in the back of the head. It didn't knock me out, I was just dizzy. I dropped the bag with the sandwiches. I remember, I remember I said 'hey', because those... I said 'those were Cecil's sandwiches', and one of them said I didn't have to worry about that anymore. And then there was something sharp. A needle probably. And that's it. That was how they took me. I was coming to see you, to bring you dinner."

 

"Oh, Carlos..." Cecil sighed, turning to nuzzle into him, and there was a rush of sweet little kisses.

 

"Your food'll get cold." Carlos said, and he wished he hadn't, because he was sure that was the wrong thing to say, would make Cecil look like he was trying not to look sad.

 

Instead Cecil laughed and kissed him hard, on the lips. "It'll still taste good. But I'd better let you eat... you like it hot."

 

"It's okay if it isn't." Carlos shrugged, and Cecil kissed his cheek.

 

"No, eat. You eat, and I'll eat."

 

They did, Cecil pulling his plate around rather than scoot back to where it was, and their knees bumped beneath the table as they ate.

 

"The next time I saw you, you were a prisoner." Carlos sighed, halfway through his meal. "And you couldn't speak."

 

"But we still made it out okay."

 

"I wanted to do unethical things to you. It scared me." He admitted.

 

"That was you remembering." Cecil reached out and took his hand, squeezing reassuringly. "Or at least remembering how you felt, if not any specific instances."

 

"N-no. Other things." Carlos pushed his plate away, appetite gone. "I-- I can't. I'm sorry."

 

He stood and strode into the kitchen, and hated himself a little more, but before long he had Cecil's arms around him.

 

"Come finish your dinner." Cecil said, his voice a low rumble that traveled from his chest to Carlos' back. "And I'll show you something afterwards that will make you feel better."

 

Carlos wasn't sure. He didn't think sex was going to fix this, but it sounded like that was what Cecil was proposing. And he wouldn't say no. Between their exhaustion, their healing injuries, Cecil's recovery from his malnutrition and Carlos' from his memory loss, their love life had remained on the chaste side so far. Maybe making love would kickstart a couple more memories. He knew without question that Cecil called it 'making love', and he knew that Cecil sometimes called it 'making love' even when they didn't-- at least, not by Carlos' reckoning.

 

"Okay." He nodded.

 

He only wound up pushing his food around his plate, for the most part, managing just a couple more bites, but it was enough to satisfy Cecil.

 

"Just sit tight a sec?" Cecil smiled, soft and hesitant, and disappeared into the bedroom with Carlos still struggling to get out a 'sure'. When he returned, he had something lying across his hands, and when he reached the table, Carlos could see what it was.

 

A collar.

 

He felt an immediate revulsion and a shock of lust, and the ring of pinprick marks had only just healed around Cecil's lovely throat, and Carlos felt himself break out in a cold sweat, head pounding.

 

"What--?"

 

"This is mine. It's a present from you." Cecil presented it. "It's okay. Carlos, it's _okay_. This is something I wanted, that you gave me, because you love me. Will you-- will you please take it? Just... take it, and hold it in your hands, and turn it over and look at it until you... until you're sure it's nothing like that thing Strex put me in. Will you do that for me?"

 

Carlos nodded, picking up the collar as if it were a snake at first, and turning it over carefully in his hands, inspecting every detail.

 

It was soft. Lightweight. Nothing like that contraption Strex had locked Cecil into, no. Nothing sharp, nothing dangerous, maybe it could even be comfortable. It had a ring at the front, hanging like a little round doorknocker, but there was no place along the inside where anything cold or uncomfortable could touch the skin, it was all lined and soft to the touch... It had a buckle, except instead of a straight metal prong it ended with a round, with a hole through it. His brain supplied the answer-- a padlock could slip through it, if it was small enough, leaving the collar unremovable by Cecil's own hands, but he couldn't remember ever doing so.

 

After what they'd been through, he couldn't imagine ever wanting to do so.

 

"Do you like this?" Carlos ventured.

 

Cecil nodded.

 

"It's comfortable? And you-- you'd want it? After everything? You don't want to throw it out, or... You want to... keep it?"

 

"Please." Cecil took a step closer, eyes wide, an air of expectancy around him.

 

Carlos sighed and reached up to slip the collar around his neck, and it moved easily, not the way that clunky metal thing must have moved at all, and he reminded himself on repeat that there were no hidden needles, no way for this to hurt Cecil as he buckled it into place.

 

The change in Cecil was immediately apparent. It was as if a weight had dropped from his shoulders, as if something beautiful had been given to him.

 

"I don't understand this." Carlos admitted, with a shrug.

 

"I'm... I'm your baby." Cecil swallowed. "And I... I just, I'm good, when you tell me to be. It makes me feel safe. It makes me happy, Carlos. It makes me feel... free, when I belong to you, and I don't have to worry because I'm yours and I know you'll take care of me. And we talked about it a lot, when we first started dating, and we made a lot of rules together so that we'd be safe and comfortable. I'll go and get those, you should look at them. Carlos... I've been waiting for you to remember, but if you're worried that you won't, then you should look at all the things we got on paper. You've been a really good Dom. If it's scaring you because you remember some of those things, then you should know, I asked for everything you've done, like that."

 

Carlos sagged with relief, and Cecil led him to the sofa where he could collapse. Cecil returned shortly with a mug of tea and a folder, and Carlos looked over long lists of things they'd wanted and not wanted.

 

The tea helped. It was sweetened perfectly, and just hot enough, and Cecil curled up next to him and talked him through their past.

 

"So... it's normal." Carlos bit his lip. "It was... _right_? For me to... to think you looked beautiful, when you were being-- Fuck, Cecil, I can't think about... about what was done to you, about how you were hurt and you couldn't even make a sound, and I..."

 

"It was normal." Cecil pressed, taking his hand and kissing it. "Part of you remembered, that's all. Part of you remembered tying me down-- because _I asked_ you to!-- and making love to me. If seeing me tied up triggered a little response for you, then I think that's a good sign for your memories being there. Did I really look beautiful?"

 

"Yes." He whispered. "Cecil, you were being tortured..."

 

"Yeah. It was pretty bad. But you can't blame yourself for that. We were both being tortured... Mostly me. They brought you in... they thought it would break me, I think, if you were the one torturing me. Honestly, I'd have been much happier letting you do any of it, the part that hurt was you not remembering me."

 

"I don't think I could have electrocuted you. I don't know how I'm going to do half this stuff you wrote down you want when I keep seeing you... miserable and cooped up and... How do I get past that?"

 

"We will." Cecil kissed his chin, and cuddled down against his shoulder. "Not right away... but we will, together... I know we will, and I know you'll remember more and more as time goes on, and I just trust all that. Thank you, Carlos, for... for putting my collar back on. I missed it, waiting on my neck to finish healing... I feel a lot better with it on."

 

"You don't wear it all the time, though."

 

"No. Just at home, mostly. It's... it's a private thing. I wear it when we play. And sometimes just... because there's been so much stress at work, building up, and when you put it on me, that all goes away."

 

"And it's your favorite color." Carlos nodded, feeling a little more confident when he could remind himself of the things he did remember. One of the earliest things he'd remembered, in that particular case.

 

"Yes. And it was a present from you... I have lots of presents from you."

 

"The watch I remember." Carlos smiled. He'd remembered, their second day back, when he'd caught Cecil fumbling to get it on over his splinted wrist. He'd recognized it as his own when he'd gone to help, and the memory had flowed back as he'd gotten the band buckled in place. That had been their first month. "And the collar, okay. And... the bear?"

 

Cecil nodded, beaming brightly. "Doctor Bear. So if I need to hold something and you're not there to hold me... So I have something. And some other things, I'll show you. You got me an apron when we moved in and a new blanket and a fluffy throw pillow for our sofa, housewarming. And socks. And you got me a council-approved book on my birthday and a framed picture of the both of us, and... You take such good care of me. And you make me my favorites--"

 

"Sopa de albondigas." Carlos supplied, laughing when Cecil nodded. "You like it because when you feel shivery it warms you back up. And because I make it for you. And we had a bunch of cans for when I'm too tired to cook, but..."

 

"But yours is better." Cecil finished. "It's your grandmother's recipe."

 

"Right. It might be a while before I can do any of this stuff for you..." Carlos looked back down at the folder, and Cecil closed it and set it aside.

 

"That's okay."

 

"But... for now. You look good, in your collar. And I think I can be okay with that. And with other things. I'll try and tell myself not to feel guilty. It could take a while, that's all."

 

"We have all the time in the world." Cecil said, and he had a conviction that made Carlos smile, even if some of that conviction came from having the comfort of his collar returned to him.

 

"Get comfy." Carlos patted his knee, and Cecil curled up and rested his head there, with a soft little sound of contentment. And for the first time in a long time, Carlos had absolutely no doubt whatsoever about what to say. "Good boy."


End file.
